Sunrise, Sunset
by Bard of Prey
Summary: An introspective look at the events of the Season Finale from Barbara's POV.


The evening sky over New Gotham was just beginning to turn pink with the sunlit rays of a new day. Through the fluffy white clouds of a spring morning, came crimson streaks of soft light. Like tiny incisions, scars only just beginning to heal, they opened in the cumulus clouds which painted the dawn. Like blood, brilliant red, warm, the sustance of life, these rays of red light touched the skyscrapers of the New Gotham skyline. Very few were awake to witness the singular beauty of the sunrise; few, save the third shift workers, the early birds, and one solitary Bird of Prey, perched on her Clocktower, lost in thought so deep she could have easily drowned in it.  
  
It was a city in ruins which lay beneath her. The citizens would keep on living their droll little lives, blissfully unaware of the sacrifices she and her friends had made. Barbara had lost so much, made such foolish decisions.   
  
It began with a security officer, turned to clay from the outside in. The legendary Clayface's son, Chris Cassius, had ingested the same chemical which gave his father metahuman powers, with a disastrous result. He had been given a Midas touch. With simple casual contact, everything Chris laid a hand upon became clay. In Helena's attempt to seek out information about the young criminal, she had gone to his father, Clayface...and there, she had learned the terrible truth about her mother's murder. It was a truth Barbara had foolishly hoped to spare her friend. She should have known she couldn't protect her forever.  
  
Alfred, always meddling in Barbara's affairs, had revealed her secret to Wade. She knew the butler only meant well, but in the end....It would have been better if Wade had simply left her. Maybe then, he would be alive. As it was, he had come back to her, fully ready to accept this aspect of her life with the same handsome, boyish smile on his attractive face.  
  
Barbara closed her green eyes to the beauty of the sunrise, unable to take another moment of it. Sleep was not coming to her at night. Sometimes, she feared it never would again. How could it, when the man she so often dreamed about was lost to her? She sighed, running her hand through her long, flame red hair.  
  
Harley Quinn, former Girl Friday to the infamous Joker, had proven to be Helena's psychologist. Unfortunately for them, Harley had been present to witness Helena's defeat of Clayface and his son. The secret discovered, it was only a matter of time before Harley used this knowledge to undermine them.  
  
She used some poor scientist as her lackey, transfered a metahuman's hypnotic abilities into herself...and proceeded to make Gibson and Helena her unwitting pawns in a plot to claim the ultimate Check Mate on New Gotham.  
  
Barbara forced her eyes open, fighting back the tears which came with that memory. Wade was gone. Helena had related not only the Clocktower's existance, but also Wade's involvement to Harley...and the saddistic woman had taken great delight in sending Barbara's lover to his death.  
  
In the end, the Birds of Prey triumphed. But, in her heart, Barbara always knew they would. She could still feel Harley beneath her, the woman's life cradled in Barbara's hands. She still regretted not snuffing that life out of existance while she had the chance...but that wasn't her style. She had to keep telling herself that.  
  
Now, a week later, New Gotham was continuing the rebuilding effort...united in their hope for a better tomorrow and their need to forget their yesterdays. Alone, Barbara sat before the newly repaired clockface, staring out at the sun as it rose, taunting her with the lives that had ended since it last set on her smile. Would she ever smile again? It didn't feel like it. It felt like the world had ended, and the naive citizens of New Gotham were uselessly living their lives after Armageddon. It felt the like the finale, the climax, had come and gone. What remained? Barbara didn't know. She just knew that as long as the sun continued to rise and taunt her with its brilliant rays of light, she would continue to rise from her own bed and fight to chase the darkness from the streets of New Gotham.   
  
Her world had ended the day Wade's boyish grin faded away. That didn't mean she'd stop fighting. Far from it. Harley may have been taken away, but the devilry of New Gotham remained. It lived in the withered hearts of the scorned and saddistic, the wretched and the rebels, the misfits and the misunderstood. The evil of the world would never die....So, Oracle, ever vigilant, would never sleep again. 


End file.
